He leaned across the console and kissed her softly. “Be careful, Red. And call me if you can’t sleep. I’ll be here as quick as I can… no strings attached.”
“I’m fine. Don’t get out.”
He put a hand on her arm and looked deep into her eyes. The way his eyes went all dreamy she would have stripped down to her bare skin and had wild sex with him right there in the cab of the truck if he’d asked.
“I’ll sit right here until you are safely inside the lobby then.”
He watched her cute little fanny sashay into the lobby. If she wanted to date, by damn, he’d give her a dating good time. When she was safely inside he backed the truck out of the parking lot and headed west back through town.
Lucy looked up when the door opened and smiled. “I’ve been lookin’ for you all day. Your momma called and I told her what was going on. Are you all right for real? Is anything broke? Did Wil keep you up like I told him to do? You can’t be lettin’ somebody who cracked their head like that go to sleep.”
Pearl nodded. “I’m fine, Lucy. Wil took good care of me. Momma got a hold of me. No vacancy?”
“That’s right. We’ll have a job tomorrow, won’t we? Delilah is down in my apartment. I took her home with me so she wouldn’t be lonesome,” Lucy said.
“How can we have no vacancies when there are no cars out there?” Pearl asked.
“Reservations. Got a funeral going on in town and that bunch needs ten rooms so I put them all over on the west wing. Got a set of elderly couples on their way home to New Mexico after the holidays, so I put them down in the end rooms. Then there’s a busload coming from an abused women’s place over in Wichita Falls. They needed ten rooms for one night and wanted to know if I’d give them a discount. I gave them the senior citizen’s ten percent. Was that all right?”
“Sure, it’s all right. If they’ve got a tax number, get that and don’t charge them taxes either. Why are they coming here?”
“The lady said those ten women had been compromised and they had to get them out of the place in a hurry. Tomorrow there’s a place in Sherman that will take them, but they’ve got to get things squared around. They just needed a place to put them for one night. The bus will bring them in, unload them, and leave. Tomorrow morning the bus from Sherman will come and get them. I feel so sorry for them.” Tears brimmed in Lucy’s eyes and her lip quivered.
“I’m sorry, Lucy. I’ll get some money out of the safe and watch the motel while you drive down to the Diamond Food store before it closes. Take the truck and get a bag of food for each of those ten rooms. Something to make sandwiches with tonight. Chips. A six-pack of Coke or Dr. Pepper. And some cookies in case there are kids coming with mothers. Get a box of donuts for their breakfast and a gallon of milk for each room in case there’s kids or babies.”
“Bananas or fresh fruit?” Lucy asked.
Pearl nodded. “Fruit would be good, and get whatever else you want to put in each bag. I won’t let children go hungry or abused women, either.”
“You are a good woman, Pearl,” Lucy said.
“That’s debatable. Maybe you’ll be back in time to put the bags in the rooms before the bus gets here.”
Lucy looked at the clock. “They said they’d be here at eight and the Sherman bus would come get them tomorrow morning at ten thirty.”
Pearl shut the door into her apartment and opened the safe under the counter. She removed three one-hundred-dollar bills and handed them to Lucy. “Get going. I’ll hold down the fort while you are gone. There’s our first bunch of tired travelers pulling in now. I’ll get them settled into rooms while you are gone.”
Lucy put the money in her worn denim purse. “You sure you feel up to it? I can take care of them and then go.”
“I’m sure. Get on out of here, and thanks for everything you’ve done.”
Lucy grinned. “Wasn’t nothing. Mostly what I did was worry about you.”
The motel door swung open. An elderly gentleman held the door for Lucy and then stepped up to the counter. “I’ve got reservations for ten rooms. I understand each of your rooms has two double beds, a small refrigerator, and a microwave. We have everything from newborn babies to me.” He handed her a credit card.
She shoved a card across the table. “I won’t make you fill out one for each room.”
“Thank goodness. Slow as I write these days we’d be here all night.”
“You are all in the rooms over on the west side.” She gathered keys from the pegboard behind her.
“Real keys. I like that.”
“I was thinking of going with computerized locks and door cards.”
“If I owned a motel, I’d never do that. They’re just something fancy that will cause you a headache. These old things have worked for centuries and will still be working when all the computers in the world go ka-putz. We’ll be out by nine in the morning. Our funeral is at eleven and there’s a family breakfast at nine thirty.”
“Thanks for letting me know. And Mr. Whitsell, I’m sorry for your loss.”
“That’s sweet. It was my aunt. The last of the line in that generation. She’s been in a nursing home for twenty years but her mind was clear as the day she was born. A delightful old girl and the family will miss her.”
He left and the next group arrived five minutes later. This time an older woman with short gray hair, wearing jeans, boots, and a denim jacket came through the door. Her lipstick had vanished but the deep wrinkles around her mouth had soaked up the remnants like Texas dirt after a hard rain in August. She reminded Pearl of Aunt Kate and she made a mental note to call her later in the week when everything settled down.
“Hello. I’ve got reservations under Leona Teasdale.”
“Yes, ma’am, you surely do. On your way home?”
She passed her credit card over the counter to Pearl. “Yes we are. New Mexico. Back to our ranch. Love going to see the family but I’m always glad to go home.”
Pearl gave her a handful of keys and a card to fill out.
Back to our ranch… The words played through Pearl’s mind like they were on a continuous loop. Back to the ranch! That’s where she wanted to be, but she had a motel to run.
“We are early risers. Can I sign everything tonight and leave the keys in the rooms? Pearlita always let me do it that way. I was awful sorry to hear of her passing. We’ve been staying here at this time of year for over twenty years. We always look forward to seeing that crazy old neon cowboy.”
“Thank you. She was my great-aunt. I miss her too. And leaving the keys in the rooms will be fine.”
It was a few minutes until eight when Lucy pulled the truck into a parking space in front of number six and trotted down to the lobby. “I’m back and I helped them sort the groceries into bags as we checked it out so there are ten bags out there. Here’s your change.” She laid a hundred-dollar bill and several coins on the counter. “I bought sale items and cheaper brands so I could stretch it out. I’ll get it unloaded.” Her eyes were twinkling and red spots dotted her cheeks.
Pearl had never seen her so excited. “I’ll help you.”
“You might not ought to be liftin’ so soon.”
“I’m just fine, Lucy. The headache is even gone now and my vision is clear as a bell. It was just a fall, not a major catastrophe.”
“Well, Wil sure sounded like he was scared to death,” Lucy argued.
“Come on. We’ve only got a few minutes to get the stuff in the rooms. You need my help.”
“Okay, but if you get dizzy or winded you tell me. I figured we’d put the milk, meat, and cheese in the refrigerator. Then we’d just leave the rest in the bag and let them do whatever they want with it. I got a loaf of bread, some bananas, chips, juice boxes for kids, and cookies. I didn’t buy Cokes though. Figured the milk would be better for everyone. I also got a box of cereal and some of those cheap Styrofoam cups and plastic spoons. That way they can have breakfast,” she said as she led the way to the truck.
/> “You didn’t use your money, did you, Lucy?”
“No. I used what you gave me. The lady at the store asked me what I was doing and I told her it was a charity case. I was afraid to tell that it was abused women for fear it would get them in trouble. She said the bananas were going on sale tomorrow so she let me have them at sale price. Then she looked at the sale bill for tomorrow and the milk was on it so I got it cheaper too. The rest I just got the cheap brands. Oh, I nearly forgot.” Lucy dug in the pocket of her sweat bottoms. “Here’s the ticket in case you need it to prove anything on your taxes.”
Pearl shoved it down into the hip pocket of her jeans. “You did really well, Lucy.”
“I’m used to making money go a long way. Cleet never did too well with a job. I thought about tellin’ the lady at the store about the women comin’ in so she’d feel good about lettin’ me have the sale prices, but I was afraid to.”
“That was smart. We wouldn’t want the women in trouble again.”
Lucy nodded. “She didn’t charge me tax since it was for charity so that helped too.”
The bus pulled into the lot seconds after Lucy and Pearl finished their job. A short man with premature gray in his temples got out and held the lobby door open for them.
“I am Luke Cornell. I believe we have ten rooms reserved.”
“Yes, you do. I talked to you,” Lucy said.
“And you own this place?”
“No, sir, I just work here. Pearl owns the Longhorn Inn and she’s been kind enough to put some food in each room for the women.”
“Thank you. They will appreciate it. They had supper but…” The man let the sentence hang.
“I’m sorry,” Lucy said.
“These things happen. We had a client who went back to her husband and wasn’t very discreet. All of these women have children so they’ll be glad to see food in their rooms. I’ll get them settled and the Sherman folks will pick them up tomorrow morning. I don’t think there’ll be any trouble. We got them out the minute we realized which ones had been compromised.”
Pearl handed him ten keys and picked up the check, but her heart wouldn’t let her put it in the cash drawer. “I’m going to let you have these rooms at half price and you tell any shelters in this area if they need to use this motel as an underground service for abused women that they can have the rooms for half price. I can take it off my taxes. Here’s your change for the other half.” She put a couple of hundred-dollar bills and a fifty in his hand. “I’ll just need you to sign a paper for me.”
“Be glad to do that. You are a good person. You been abused?”
“No, I have not. Got too much temper for that.”
“Well, God bless you! Too bad you couldn’t give some of that to these women and my sister. I tried to get her out of the situation she was in, but she wouldn’t have none of it. The last time around she died. I drive the bus for these people as a payback and tell her story for her in hopes that it will wake some of these women up.”
“Bless your heart,” Lucy said.
He left and escorted each woman and her children from the bus to a motel room.
Lucy watched from the window and when the last one stepped out of the bus, tears flooded her cheeks. The woman was barely more than a child, a skinny girl that didn’t look to be more than eighteen carrying a baby with a diaper bag thrown over her shoulder and two toddlers struggling to keep up beside her.
“That could’ve been me,” Lucy whispered.
Pearl patted her shoulder and headed back to her apartment. “But you got out of it, Lucy. And you’ve got a job and your dignity back. They’ll have the same. It just might take them a while because they do have children.”
“My heart hurts for them, especially that last one.”
“I’m leaving. Wanted to thank you one more time,” Luke said as he made his way from the door to the counter.
Lucy looked up. “Can you tell me about that last one? We could see a little by the light above the lobby door and she looked so young.”
“She looks young but she’s twenty. Got pregnant with those twin boys when she was eighteen. Married the man and he began to beat her after they were born. She says he was good until he lost his job in all this economic mess, then he started layin’ around drinkin’ because he didn’t have anything to do. She got pregnant again and the baby is six months old. The husband got mad last week and slung one of those boys against the wall and beat the hell out of her when she picked the baby up to comfort him. She waited until the husband went to sleep and walked out with nothing but the clothes on her back, a bottle of milk for the baby, and ten dollars. She’d heard of us somehow and walked three miles with those kids to our shelter. She’s tough and she’s finished taking abuse. Don’t worry about her. And thanks again for the food. They were excited to have it. And many thanks for the half price rate.”
“You want a cup of coffee before you go back?” Lucy asked.
“That’d be nice,” Luke said.
Lucy motioned toward the chairs. “Have a seat over there and I’ll get you one.”
“Pearl?” she whispered as she eased the apartment door open.
“In the bathroom,” Pearl said.
“All right if I get some coffee?”
“Help yourself.”
He’d barely sat down before she was back with two mugs in her hand. She handed him one and sat down in the recliner beside him.
“I’m sorry about your sister. I was nearly to that point when I left.”
“I could see in your eyes that you had problems before. You can get out of it, but getting the pain out of you ain’t so easy,” Luke said.
“You sure got that right. What makes a man like that?”
He sipped the coffee. “Lots of excuses but not one damn good reason for a man to ever treat a woman like anything but a queen.”
She nodded.
He set the cup down and stood up. “Thank you, Lucy. Maybe I’ll come by sometime when I’m not driving a bus for the shelter. I work at the Department of Human Services over in Wichita Falls. Maybe you’d go get an ice cream cone with me sometime?”
“I’d like that,” Lucy said with a bright smile.
“Okay, then, I’ll call sometime. I’m in this area once a month, usually on a Wednesday,” he said.
Lucy nodded. She wanted to jump up and down and dance, but she kept her cool until Luke was in the bus. Then she hopped up, ran to the apartment door, and knocked on it.
“I see a glow on your face.” Pearl smiled as she answered the door.
“His name is Luke and he’s a decent man and he asked if I’d go get an ice cream with him some Wednesday when he’s in this area and I said I’d never even look at another man and I’m still married and what do I do because I like him?” Lucy said in one breath.
“Lucy, I’ve got a lawyer friend in Sherman who can take care of that marriage thing in a very quiet way. And what you do if you are attracted to that feller is go eat ice cream with him and tell him your story.”
“Really? You’d do that for me?” Lucy asked.
“Oh, yeah! Now I’ll take care of the motel. You go on and think about Luke.” Pearl laughed.
“Never say never,” Lucy mumbled as she rinsed the two cups and put them in the dishwasher. “I’m going on to my room now. Me and Delilah are going to spend a while reading after I feed her. She’s a good cat. You ever want to get rid of her I’d sure like to have her as mine.”
“Lucy, you are welcome to find a cat or a kitten of your own. There are advertisements in the paper all the time for free kittens.”
Lucy’s face registered pure joy. “You serious?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I want a yellow one just like Delilah. You call me if you need anything. If you feel dizzy or like you are going to faint or anything like that.”
“I promise I will,” Pearl said.
Lucy nodded seriously and left the door into the lobby open as she left.
**
*
Pearl was alone and it felt strange. “Chaos,” she said. She’d barely gotten the word out of her mouth when her phone rang. She fished it out of her purse and hurriedly said, “Hello!”
“Hi, Red. I can’t sleep. Are you all right? Talk to me a while,” Wil said.
She smiled. “Of course I’m all right. I was about to read until time to turn out the lights. I’m not sleepy either after sleeping all day. But tomorrow is going to be a stinker. We’ve got a full house.”
“Well, I’m too wired to sleep and now I’m thinking about tomorrow night. We could do something other than bowling if you want.”
“I haven’t been bowling in months. I’d love to go. And a good old greasy hamburger and a cold beer sounds wonderful,” she said.
“Just don’t want any other cowboy to come along and offer you something more exciting,” he said.
“Honey, I barely have time for one cowboy in my life right now,” she said.
He danced a jig right there in the bedroom and Digger looked at him like he had clean lost his human mind.
“I’m glad. I wouldn’t want there to be two cowboys in your life,” he said.
“Hey, it’s all I can do to keep up with the cowboy who puts things that trip me up at the top of his stairs just so I’ll spend the night with him.”
“Awww, I wouldn’t do that to my favorite red-haired lady,” he drawled.
Her heart skipped a beat. So she was his favorite red-haired lady, was she? Who was his favorite blonde? A wide band of green jealousy wrapped itself around her heart.
The business phone rang before she could think of a comeback. “Gotta run. Business calls on the other phone.”
“Call me if you have a change of heart. I can be there in less than ten minutes.”
“I will.” She hung up and made a dive for the phone before it went to the fourth ring and the answering machine.
“Longhorn Inn, may I help you?” she said.
“Either I just interrupted the best sex in the world or you are cleaning. Those are the only two things I can think of that would make you that breathless,” Austin said.
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